TPN :: ValuesHacker

Coffee makes you more open-minded

June 14th, 2006

And while we are talking about studies, New Scientist has revealed that coffee can make you more openminded:

Moderate doses of caffeine can also make you more easily convinced by arguments that go against your beliefs, say Pearl Martin of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and her colleagues.

Does that seem right? It makes some sense to me. It perhaps explains a bit of coffee shop culture and innovation being associate with coffee shops.

Link

Posted in General | 1 Comment »

Oldies happier than youth. Really?

June 14th, 2006

A new study by the University of Michgan and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System reports a couple of interesting findings.

People tend to believe that they get less happier as they get older. That those young days were the happiest times of their lives.
Actual studies of people’s happiness show that opposite: people tend to get happier as they get older.

This sort-of makes sense to me. But I really don’t want to let go of that idea that there are these very happy days in my past. Does that mean I’m going to get really, really happy as I get older?

Link.
via BoingBoing

Posted in Happiness | No Comments »

Moving. No shows. Two months. Bad Grahams.

May 19th, 2006

If you’ve been listening intently to our shows, you’ll have gathered that one of us, me, Graeme Sutherland, is moving from Australia to the UK.

Most people I encounter think I am mad; but a few kind of get it.

Anyway, that in part explains the lack of new podcasts here in ValuesHacker land. I’ve been in transit for a couple of weeks and the internet has been kindof scarse. I do have an episode to finish editing that we recorded a couple of weeks ago.. I’ll get that up over the weekend probably.

Talk to you soon…

-graeme

Posted in General | No Comments »

What does a musician make from a recording contract?

April 22nd, 2006

When we were disussing copyright, the issue came up of just home much a musician can expect from a recording contract.

See this summary of recording contract basics. The really quick rule-of-thumb is the artist gets something between 9 and 12 percent of sales at full retail price AFTER lots of expenses are recouped. 80% of albums never make enough to pay back the expenses, so the artist gets nothing.

Somebody at the Philosophy cafe said that their friends had a band and a recording contract, and they received 12 cents per CD after all other costs.

Posted in Copyright | No Comments »

Philosophy cafe: great debate, no recording

April 22nd, 2006

If we were paranoid, we’d blame it on the long arm of the recording industry trying to stifle debate about copyright. The PA packed up as soon as we started discussing copyright :-)
We had a robust Philosophy Cafe debate with about 40 people down at Tropicana in Fremantle .. We were all set up to record it, but mysteriously the PA and microphones packed up on us and we ended up with a lot of spealing, popping or just plain white noise.

The crowd were quite happy to abandon the microphones.. but it means we have no recording of the night. In another post we’ll try to summarise the debate. However, what was wonderful was to see how deep and rich the disussion was. We started talking simply about the legality and morals of copying a CD and ended up discussing culture, the law, morality in general, and lot of other things.

A pity about the recording. We’ll pop a couple of new shows up in the next couple of weeks.

Posted in Copyright | 2 Comments »

ValuesHacker goes to the Philosophy Cafe

April 6th, 2006

As we said in the last show, we are taking ValuesHacker to the Fremantle Philosophy Cafe this month. We’ll be recording a podcast there, with lots of input and discussion from all the participants that show up.

So, if you are close to Fremantle, come on down… Here are the details:
Date: Thursday, April 20 2006

Time: 7.30pm

Where: Tropicana Cafe (166 High Street, near Myers, Fremantle),

And the topic is:

Dr Graeme Mann (Murdoch University) and Mr Graeme Sutherland (a local Fremantle businessman) will give us a run through the ethics of intellectual property, copyright and so on, with the topic: “I know copying CDs is against the law, but is it Wrong?”

Should be a lot of fun. And nothing like capturing a real discussion in a cafe.

See you there…

Posted in Copyright | 1 Comment »

Please take our Survey

April 3rd, 2006

We’ve set up a new TPN survey to find out what you want!

Only one page long!

You can do it in seconds!

CLICK HERE and help us out.

Posted in General, TPN | 2 Comments »

ValuesHacker # 7 - Copying

April 3rd, 2006

ValuesHacker #007 (MP3 - 15.6MB - 45min)

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE
In this show, we start a series on copying and copyright and rights and Digital Rights Management and Technical Protection Measures and all that stuff.

Yes, we do allow you to copy our show onto your MP3 player and listen to it. Good thing we said that, because otherwise it might be illegale to copy it onto you iPod in some countries, like Australia for example!??!

Here’s what we ~~rave on~~ talk about:

Copying isn’t theft, even though the adverts at the beginning of the movies claim so. With perfect digital copying, the original is still there, so what, exactly has been stolen? If a robbery has taken place, something ought to be missing…
So copying a CD is not theft, it is something else.
It is illegal to copy a CD onto an iPod in Australia. That’s a silly law. So we all break it. Practically, we have a pragmatic view of the law, we obey most of the laws, but not all. We don’t obey the laws that seem stupid to us or impinge on our lives.
There seems to be a legal “land-grab” to criminalise everything.
We talk about the commons, and the tradgedy of the commons.
A solution: Creative Commons: “Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that offers flexible copyright licenses for creative works “
Disney has appropriated many fairy tales.
We are in the culture wars.
We grab a girl’s toy, a magical sceptre. It plays a musical tune. Are we allowed to play it on the show? Probably not.
Some facts are copyrighted. We read out a copyrighted fact. Are we in trouble. But you can’t even think about it. So, if you listen to the podcast and you think about the fact we reveal, then you have done something illegal.
Michael Crighton’s essay: “This Essay Breaks the Law” (NY Times registation required).
Richard Neville’s satirical John Howard website gets removed by Australian PM’s office.
What is the ‘Culture War’?
We will be taking the show to one of Fremantle’s Philosophy Cafes to get some other views

We love your comments. Go on… say hello…

Posted in Podcast, Copyright | 9 Comments »

Corporates buy into ‘values’

March 23rd, 2006

Just this week, two major corporations have bought up values-oriented companies:

Cosmetics giant L’Oreal purchased Anita Roddick’s The Body Shop, known for its strong campigning for animal and human rights
Colgate purchased 84% of Tom’s of Maine, another all-natural personal care brand.

Are these big companies changing their values, or just buying into an emerging consumer desire to but something good that is also good for the planet? It has to be the latter, right? As much as we’d like to believe the corporates are going to embrace values other than ‘enhancing shareholder value’.
Big companies buy small brands with big values in USA Today

Posted in Values News, Business | 4 Comments »